Things to consider when questioning

As teachers find themselves in the middle of a lesson, there are other factors that need to be considered when engaging students in (verbal) open ended questions.
1. Do not lead students to the correct answer, only provide scaffolding when necessary. When told “Miss, I don’t know how to do this”, a teacher’s immediate response may be to tell the answer. Students can not learn by telling, they learn by doing. Asking students open questions such as finding out what they do know, followed by asking what it is that is making them stuck may help them to talk through their problems. Once students identify why they are stuck, the teacher can then decide the best action to take. If they are stuck because they do not know a particular skill, a quick mini-lesson may help. If students are stuck because of a lack of understanding of the concept being taught, a simpler version of the tasks can be provided. Students need to find success with solving the problems they work on; therefore it is essential to ensure the actual tasks fit the student.
2. Always answer a question with a question. Students ask questions when they either don’t know how to do something or they are unsure about what they are doing. They request an answer that will help them come to a solution. Students learn by doing, they learn by testing out their own conjectures and answering their own questions. Therefore, by answering student’s questions with appropriate teacher questions, students can learn how to eventually help themselves. Teachers may wish to begin asking students what they already know, and what is causing them trouble. As they talk through the problem and their thinking, they can be guided (and not told) how to proceed. This is hard for teaches to do as it is natural to ‘help’ students. This help traditionally have meant ‘telling’, therefore teachers must always be conscious of this strategy to ensure they are allowing all students a chance to become engaged in the math they are learning.

3. Never evaluate or confirm student answers. No matter how silly or outrageous a student response may be, always give the student a chance to explain his/her thinking. This is important to do as it is the teacher’s role to find out what it is that makes sense to the child and then build from there. If a student gives a wrong answer, they may feel upset and are likely to abandon the math they are working on. If they see that at least some of what they are saying or thinking is true, they will gain confidence, which is so important to math success.

4. Ask for others opinions before giving your own. As students offer solutions to a problem and explain it to the class, or the teacher, ask other students their opinions on the proposed answer. Have students use their own personal strategies to test out this solution to the problem. Then provide opportunities for these students to confirm or reject the solution, having them explain their reasoning. This not only creates a great conversation piece, it also allows students to see other ways of doing and thinking.

5. Be general with the questions, instead of being specific. For example, in a lesson where students are working on addition of two 2-digit numbers, a student has made the connection that the two numbers being added, the addends, need to be joined together. After representing these two separate addends using base ten blocks, the student decides to put all of the blocks together. As the student is trying to find the sum by counting all of the blocks, he/she comes to a point when they don’t know how to go from counting the rods to counting the units. The student asks the teacher how to continue counting. Using general questions, the teacher would ask the student to explain what s/he thinks s/he should do. Here the teacher can assess the students thinking and understanding of place value, an important concept in addition, and allow this response to guide further questioning. Other questions such as “Show me how you know”, “why do you think this?” “What would happen if…?” could also be used to help guide the student to solving the problem. Consider these questions the teacher could have asked “What should you do with the rods and the units? How many rods are here? How many units are here? If we are adding, what do we now have to do? If there are 6 rods, and each rod is 10, how much is here in rods? If there are 16 units, how many are there altogether? These types of questions would lead students to finding the right answer while applying the teacher’s method and not using their own. Therefore, these types of questions should be avoided.